In the spirit of Crooms speech in Tupelo...

[Coach34]

Id like to throw this wager out to the board:

I'm betting we finish 100 or lower in offense in 2008. Anybody wanting to bet against me call it now. 10 bucks to the Sixpack coffers and 10 to the Bulldog Club (20 dollar bet) by the loser. I will save this thread (ala Ronny) and present it at the end of the season.</p>

Also, forget the rhetoric of "I dont care where we finish on offense as long as we win" because finishing 100 or lower didnt help us win in 2004, 2005, and 2006.

Any takers?</p>

 

[Coach34]

Id like to throw this wager out to the board:

I'm betting we finish 100 or lower in offense in 2008. Anybody wanting to bet against me call it now. 10 bucks to the Sixpack coffers and 10 to the Bulldog Club (20 dollar bet) by the loser. I will save this thread (ala Ronny) and present it at the end of the season.</p>

Also, forget the rhetoric of "I dont care where we finish on offense as long as we win" because finishing 100 or lower didnt help us win in 2004, 2005, and 2006.

Any takers?</p>

 

[Shmuley]

Would you be flashing the potato in your jorts if Brown wasn't such a dubmass and Riddell hadn't washed out?

 

[Coach34]

Would you be flashing the potato in your jorts if Brown wasn't such a dubmass and Riddell hadn't washed out?

</p>its about Crooms...We have enough talent to finish in the top 70 in offense...yet we wont

either take the bet or shut up

 

[saddawg]

bets taking Big Brown to show.
I agree, Croom, 17 trying to get to Atlanta or a big time bowl. As long as we are more of a man and tougher than everybody, that's all that matters

 

[TnDawg76]

Bet taken. The O breaks the top 100 this year.

 

[BriantheDawg]

[No message]

 

[MaxwellSmart]

I don't think McCroomvy could break 100 with Florida's starting players.

 

[ArrowDawg]

....take that bet because I don't believe the offense will break the top 100. That doesn't mean we won't somehow pull another winning season out of our ***, but I don't think it'll be because of anything the offense does. I certainly hope I'm wrong, of course, because while I like winning seasons I prefer them to also be accompanied by an exciting offense. I mean I hate to say it, but MSU football bores me to a great degree......even when we're winning.

 

[jwbigcreek]

but Woody makes the Amadeeville Horror (believe Arrow coined that phrase) look like good O in comparison.

 

[hatfieldms]

Im in

 

[TR.sixpack]

but I'm not stupid. I also don't take bets that offer no reward for being right. However, I wonder what the mood of the board would be if we break into the top half of the nation in offense and go 5-7.

 

[Todd4State]

it's ALL about the players.

It doesn't matter what scheme you run- the 49ers won five Super Bowls running the WCO- you've got to have players to run it. For example, Montana, Rice, Craig, Rathman, Taylor, Brent Jones, were the reasons why the 49ers won. Not because the ran plays that were any better. And yes, Bill Walsh was awesome, but his play calls could have been the best in the world and not worked if his players couldn't run it.

</p>

 

[TaleofTwoDogs]

possible bowl game in your final stats or are you calling it after the regular season ends. Could make a difference, but based on the last four years I doubt it. But lets clarify before the big bucks start hitting the table.

 

[patdog]

Coach is right that it is about the offensive coaches (including Croom). They suck donkey balls and don't have the common sense to change something that clearly isn't working. But Todd's right too that we haven't had the players on offense to run ANY offense very well. Coach even admits that by saying that we have the talent to rank in the 70's offensively. That's not exactly saying we have much offensive talent. The fact is we have average RBs, an average line, below average FB, and our QBs and WRs are terrible. I don't care what offense you run, with that talent you're not going to set the world on fire. I do think that with experience, Carroll has a chance to be a decent QB in the next year or two, but last year he mostly was pretty bad. He did have some moments where he looked good, but let's not forget that he was actually pulled for Henig in both of our last two games.

Edited to add that ultimately, it's about Croom. It's his responsibility to hire good coaches and recruit good players. So far, on the offensive side of the ball, he gets an F.

 

[Coach34]

but I'm not stupid. I also don't take bets that offer no reward for being right. However, I wonder what the mood of the board would be if we break into the top half of the nation in offense and go 5-7.

</p>With the defensive personnel we have (Lindy's has our secondary ranked 5th best in the nation), if we break into the top half of the nation in offense, we will win 10 games. I wonder what the mood of the board would be then????

 

[saddawg]

Do you think there is no relation between the spread offense and, Appy State knocking off Michigan, Meyer's run at Utah, Oregon last season, the recent success of Mizzou, Houston, Texas Tech, Kansas, the revival of Oklahoma and West Va., Baylor signing 2 top 25 QBs this year?

I'll make it simple for you people who ***** about predictability. If you line up in the I formation there are a limited number of plays you can run. Therefore easier to predict.

You spread the field and you are almost just limited to your imagination in the plays you run. Therefore hard to predict.

Agreed, if you are Georgia, LSU, Ohio State, or USC you can get in the I and beat people, because you have the players.

State can't get that kind of talent. However, State can get Kansas, T Tech, Mizzou,Houston and even Appy State talent. Therefore it makes sense to me that it is easier to fix the offense by going to the spread than to fix it by recruiting.

 

[TR.sixpack]

since you spent an entire month telling us how bad the Harbison hire was and how we would miss Ellis Johnson. But hey, it's all about the personnel now.

BTW, where was your precious LSU ranked?

 

[Todd4State]

relationship between those teams having people like Alex Smith, Tim Tebow, and Dennis Dixon among others running those offenses. Even if you run the spread offense, you still have to have people that can play. Look at West Virginia when Pat White went down. If we had Henig running the spread, he would still try to throw it 100 MPH in no general direction, our o-line still would be average, our receivers routes would still be crappy and they would still be inconsistent, and we would be taking our best RB, AD and trying to make him an outside runner rather than an inside runner for a good but of the time. And McCorvey/Croom would still be calling the plays.

I don't think the key for a school like State, or those others that you mentioned, is to try to out gimmick everyone, but to develop players. That is probably where we have failed on offense as much as anything. I think the conservative play calling is a product of having inconsistent players. Time may prove me wrong on this.

When you talk about the I formation being limited, that's just not true. You can run about as many plays out of the I as you can out of a spread formation. You can also be just as creative running the WCO vs the spread offense. It's up to the coach.

And don't get me wrong, I'm not against the spread offense. It's all about what the coach wants to do. I just don't think that we can just change offenses and necessarily be better overnight. Look at Ole Miss when they went to the spread the last couple of games. It worked for a little bit against LSU because they weren't expecting it, but then they lit us up for a grand total of 14 points. Why? Because of their coaching and talent.

</p>

 

[TR.sixpack]

With the defensive personnel we have (Lindy's has our secondary ranked 5th best in the nation)....

...except when it is about players.

 

[rebelrouseri]

I know it failed miserably at Nebraska. The wco just doesn't work in college where you have limited time w/ the players and a complicated offense. the spread is much better suited to the particular paradigm of college football and can be modified to fit your personnell. </p>

 

[saddawg]

When you talk about the I formation being limited, that's just not true. You can run about as many plays out of the I as you can out of a spread formation.

I'm not trying to pick a fight but if you believe that, you know Tee-Tee about offensive football.</p>

</p>

 

[Stormrider81]

It's not the system and it's not lack of talent that has us in the 100's offensively, it's the playcalling. The offense we run isn't going to rank in the top 30 and the talent we have aren't going to get us there either, but we could rank in the 70's or 80's at least and produce more yards, TOP, and points. Why don't we? We are predictable, and that should not be blamed on the offensive system we run. You can line up in the I formation and still keep defenses on their toes. On first down we typically run up the gut. On second down we either run up the gut again or we throw a very short pass. On 3rd and long we either run a draw or we throw it to a WR running an out pattern. You can tell by down and distance and formation what we are going to do almost all the time. Now look at when we mixed it up, such as the first half against UK or the TD drive in the Liberty Bowl. It's obvious that if we were less predictable with our playcalling we could at least perform in a decent manner offensively.

The spread offense is the in system now. Everybody is buzzing about it. I won't down on it because it obviously works for the team that have been successful using it. However, it's important to realize that it isn't a fix-all. If we changed to the spread this year we would still have the same playcallers, therefore we wouldn't be significantly better than we are right now. The first step we need to take in order to make true offensive progress is hiring someone who knows how to call plays. There's a large difference between being a good position coach that knows an offense and being a good playcaller. Right now we have an OC who is great at coaching running backs but is terrible at calling plays. We need to hire someone that knows what he is doing.

 

[saddawg]

I haven't got time to debate your play calling theory but I will say you can call a hell of a lot more plays spreading people out than you can in power formations. Therefore you should like the spread because it would give you more formations and plays to call.

 

[patdog]

There's no doubt you can run more plays out of the spread than out of the I (although we probably run less than half our plays out of the I). But we could also run a hell of a lot more plays out of the formations we do run than we do now. Hell, the formations we run a lot of our plays out of now aren't that different from a spread formation anyway. We just don't commit to those formations on a full-time basis like a true spread offense does. And we run a lot of simplistic plays out of those sets.

Bottom line is, you can have a good offense running just about any formations you want to and you can have a ****** offense running just about any formations you want to. The biggest problem with our offense isn't the formations (although I do agree that a spread offense would probably be best for us). It's the coaches, players and play-calling. We just don't have good coaches, our overall talent level on offense is below average, and we call predictible plays. Add that all up and you get an offense that consistently ranks in the bottom 10 in Div. I-A.

 

[DowntownDawg]

what it needs to do to be a consistent winner. 1) Play good/great defense. 2) Have average/good special teams and 3)Run clock/play ball control on offense. When Henig went down, this is exactly what we were forced to do, and lo and behold, we won 8 games.

When Jackie won, he used the same formula. Although his late 90's offenses were much better than anything we've seen in the Croom era, they were still pretty pitiful. But we relied heavily on the running game, special teams, and defense to win.

I'll make it simple for you. We're not going to outrecruit LSU, Florida, Alabama, Auburn, and others for the top skill players in the South. But we are always going to be able to be in on solid runningbacks, and we also are able to get enough decent lineman, for the most part.

 

[Stormrider81]

he would still call the same plays every game. Run up the gut, short pass, out pattern, occasional off tackle with the slowest RB we have, play action sack, etc. The guy consistently calls those plays in a predictable fashion. On rare occasions he breaks out of that the results are head and shoulders above our typical offensive output.

Also, the offense we run allows for a wide variety of plays to be called. I'm not buying into the thought process that the spread allows you to run that many more plays. Again, our chief problem is playcalling. I'm not against going to the spread, I'm against going to the spread with McCorvey because that won't fix the main problem but will rather act like a band-aid on a gunshot wound. We need a new offensive braintrust. Croom needs to hire someone that knows how to call plays and let that person run the offense. At that point I could care less what offense we run as long as I can't tell from my seat what play we are going to run on any given down.

 

[patdog]

1) Play good/great defense. 2) Have average/good special teams and 3)Run clock/play ball control on offense.

Why can't we 1) Play good/great defense. 2) Have average/good special teams and 3)move the ball and score a few points on offense.

Having a good defense and having a half-way decent offense aren't mutually exclusive. And you don't have to outrecruit LSU, Florida, Alabama and Auburn to have a half-way decent offense. That's one of the main advantages of the spread offense. You don't have to have great talent to be successful with it. But you do have to have good coaching.

 

[DowntownDawg]

...and like I said, we failed to execute in 2007, primarily in the passing game, which would've opened up our running game even more. Part of that is coaching, and part of that is having a true freshman back there without very good receivers.

In my mind, there are two extremes to the spread offense. On one hand, you have the pass happy spread run by Texas Tech, Kentucky, etc. I don't believe that we would be successful in the western division of the SEC running this offense. The ball is thrown too much, thus slowing down the game. You will likely score more points, but you also are taking a greater risk of throwing the interception. This is the version of the spread that I am arguing against. In fact, in the second half of 2006, we spread the field and threw it more. Henig threw interception after interception, and we still finished with 3 wins. We just won't get the skill players at Mississippi State to run this successfully in our division of our conference.

The other extreme is the West Virginia style spread option, which is a primarily running attack. I would argue that if you put West Virginia in the SEC, their results wouldn't be what they have been in the Big East. We would have better luck getting personnel to fit this offense, but it still requires skill players that we are going to be hard pressed to get at Mississippi State. Plus, it's the current fad, just like the option and wishbone were a few years ago. As more people run it, more people are going to figure out how to stop it.

My biggest problem with the WCO is not the lack of flexibility that it gives you, you can basically run anything you want out of the WCO. My biggest problem is that it seems to be a very difficult system for the average college athlete to pick up. You've got somebody for 4-5 years. If it takes them longer than one year to learn the system, it's too hard. Apparently Relf still hasn't gotten it.

In summary, it's ridiculous to finish out of the top 100 offensively, but the football philosophy of great defense, good special teams (still need a punter to make this happen), and having a run first/ball control offense is the best way to win at Mississippi State. It's been a lack of execution and play calling that has put us where we are offensively.

 

[RebelBruiser]

Look at Ole Miss when they went to the spread the last couple of games. It worked for a little bit
against LSU because they weren't expecting it, but then they lit us up for a grand total of 14 points. Why? Because of their coaching and talent.

</p>

</p>

We used the spread almost solely against LSU with Schaeffer at QB. Against you, we used it about half the time in the first half, and it worked well when we actually did it. However, at halftime, Werner said he wanted to go back to the basic pro set for the second half. Freeze and Wilson disagreed, and there was a big argument about it. Orgeron decided to let Werner have his way, and for most of the second half we ran the pro set with basically no success with very little spread mixed in.

Basically, any bits of spread that were installed last year were Freeze's plays. The base pro sets we ran were Werner's plays. Werner went on an ego trip over the fact that his stuff wasn't working and Freeze's was working, so he basically took over, and he shut down our own offense in the Egg Bowl because he didn't like the fact that he was being shown up by an assistant.

If I had the full game tape, I'd go back to try to analyze the results, but our offense's sputtering pretty much coincided with the times that we went back to the base sets.

That said, the spread is not the magical answer. It only works with the right personnel. With Seth Adams at QB, a pro style offense worked better. With Schaeffer at QB, it worked better to spread the field and give him a lot more running lanes and running options. Werner chose to go with Schaeffer and the pro set for most of the 2nd half of the MSU game, except for the final drives we were to the point where we basically had to abandon the run, which was Schaeffer's biggest weapon in the spread set. I will agree that the spread is a more flexible offense that can be adapted more easily to different personnel, but it's not a magic answer.

Edited to add: Do you remember what set we were in on the infamous 4th and 1? I'll give you a hint, it wasn't a spread set with McCluster and Schaeffer in the gun together.

 

[Coastdog28]

I say instead of a playcalling book, we create a playcalling box. Where all of our plays are put in a big box and all McCorvey has to do is reach his hand in and pull a play out. Think about it 1st and G wed throw a hail mary, or maybe even punt. We would be the most unpredictable Offense ever, thus creating a more efficient offense than we currently have.</p>

 

[patdog]

First and goal in a Woody McCorvey offense! Good stuff!

 

[RebelBruiser]

with offensive coaches like Croom, McCorvey, Cutcliffe, Mazzone, Werner, etc. is that they are "system" coaches. The only way to be a "system" coach and win is if you are in a position to be able to basically hand pick the type of players and the talent level of your players.

I think the best coaches are what I would call "personnel" coaches. They're the ones that fit the old adage, "he can take his and beat yours, and then he can take yours and beat his". Coaches that understand that not all players are created the equal are the ones that I think are needed for schools like Ole Miss and MSU where we can't hand pick our talent.

I've used Rich Rodriguez as an example of this before. He came to WVU wanting to run a pass-oriented offense. However, he managed to adapt his offense around guys like Amos Zeroue originally and later to Pat White and Steve Slaton. He never had the type of QB that could fling it 40 times a game successfully, so he adapted his offense to his players.

Croom's biggest problem is that he's sold on making a certain system work rather than trying to tweak the system to his players. Of course he did seem to bring in some option elements in the Liberty Bowl, so he may be coming around.

 

[OEMDawg]

And I would counter your argument with Kansas. They switched to a spread with a redshirt freshman QB that is NOWHERE near the talent of the 3 that you mentioned. That kid won't sniff the first round of any draft yet lowly KU racked up 500+ yards per game and won a BCS bowl. I get what you are saying but how f'ing long can we wait for the "right personnel" to run Crooms ******** offense? He's had 5 years already. Why are MSU fans always so willing to give a pass when a new Qb or WR group comes in? Recrootin is supposed to take care of that, yet in 5-6 classes we are still talking about deficencies in talent on the offensive side of the ball.